Month: March 2024

South China Sea: Beijing urges Southeast Asian nations to ‘cherish peace’ and help stop tensions spiralling out of control

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“People in East Asian countries should be aware of and cherish the three-decade-long regional peace since the end of the Cold War, and efforts should be spared to prevent new conflicts from emerging in the South China Sea,” Liu told a panel discussion about the disputed waterway. China’s special envoy for climate change Liu Zhenmin addresses a panel discussion at the Boao Forum. Photo: Xinhua He also warned: “The past year has witnessed closer military cooperation among the United States, Japan and the Philippines. Many are concerned that this would…

AI boom drives global stock markets to best first quarter in five years

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Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Equities myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Global stock markets have recorded their best first-quarter performance in five years, buoyed by hopes of a soft economic landing in the US and enthusiasm about artificial intelligence. An MSCI index of worldwide stocks has gained 7.7 per cent this year, the most since 2019, with stocks outperforming bonds by the biggest margin in any quarter since 2020, even as traders scale back their expectations for rapid interest rate cuts. The…

Americans studying in China are safe despite US travel advisory, scholars say

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American students in China have not experienced significant threats to their safety, and the US State Department must make its travel advisory for the country more specific, scholars said on Thursday. “There are people for whom going to China is risky [but] they don’t tend to be students or scholars,” said Deborah Seligsohn, an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University, during a launch event at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies for a new report on US-China scholarly “recoupling”. “And so we need a more specific travel…

China to Drive World Economic Recovery, Says a Top Communist Official

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Brushing off domestic economic headwinds, a top Communist Party official said Thursday that China aims to drive the world’s recovery this year by pushing forward reforms and making tech innovation a new point of growth. The remarks from Zhao Leji, who chairs the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, come as foreign investment in the country is falling and it grapples with issues that include high youth unemployment, ballooning debt and a crisis in the property market. Speaking to businesspeople and other leaders at the Boao Forum for Asia,…

Rising theft of cables and bolts along the Laos-China railway

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The new Laos-China railway is hiring more security guards at train stations after a rise in thefts of electrical cables, bolts and other equipment along the route, two employees of a private security company told Radio Free Asia. The cables and bolts are sold to scrap metal businesses by people looking for an easy way to raise cash, a villager who lives close to the railway told RFA. It’s widely believed that many of the thieves are addicted to drugs, the villager said. But even with extra security guards and…

2 Vietnamese bloggers charged for criticizing death penalty case

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Vietnamese authorities on Thursday arrested and charged two Facebook bloggers for “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe the interests of the state” for posting comments about the handling of a case of a death row inmate, Vietnamese media reported.  The Security Investigation Agency of the Binh Duong provincial police charged Nguyen Duc Du and Hoang Quoc Viet under Article 331 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, saying their social media posts about death row inmate Ho Duy Hai being unjustly sentenced had insulted judiciary agencies.  Their cases bring to five the number of…

Taiwan’s Top Diplomat Says U.S. Aid to Ukraine Is Critical for Deterring China

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Joseph Wu, the foreign minister of Taiwan, said on Thursday that a halt in U.S. arms shipments to Ukraine would embolden China in its aggressions against Taiwan and fuel propaganda from Beijing that the United States is an unreliable partner. “When people ask us whether it is OK for the United States to abandon Ukraine, the answer is no, because the world is operating not in a black-and-white way, or if you only look at one theater at a time,” he said. “The world is interconnected.” If Russia is able…

Bomb blast injures 5 teens collecting bottles for recycling in Yangon

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A bomb blast in downtown Yangon on Wednesday evening injured five teenage boys who were collecting bottles for recycling, residents of Myanmar’s largest city who witnessed it said. The boys inadvertently detonated the bomb after picking up and opening a bag that was sitting on the roadside, residents said. “One of them was unable to move anything below his knee joint, as shrapnel from the bomb tore flesh from his lower leg down to the bone,” one witness told RFA Burmese. “Three of them were left in critical condition.” No…

Chinese Diplomat Liu Jianchao Meets With Singapore’s Leaders

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singapore —  Liu Jianchao, the senior diplomat widely expected to become China’s next foreign minister, said “the world needs connectivity, not decoupling,” during a four-day visit to Singapore. Liu, who heads the international department of the Communist Party, was in the city-state to meet with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and the country’s incoming leader, Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During a speech at the FutureChina Dialogue on Wednesday, local media reported that Liu warned of the need for “civilizations to engage, not to clash,” in the context of multiple…

Philippines President Condemns Chinese ‘Attacks,’ Vows ‘Proportionate’ Countermeasures    

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The Philippines said it will take retaliatory measures against what President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Thursday called “dangerous attacks” by China on its vessels in the South China Sea, the latest instance of escalating tensions between the two nations. While the Philippines views its disputes with China as an encroachment on its sovereignty, Beijing has accused Philippine vessels of intruding into Chinese waters and has warned Manila that it will defend its own sovereignty. In a statement on X, Marcos added that recent “attacks” in the South China Sea were “illegal,…